


Crown of Fangs

by Nosferatank



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Astrology, Gen, Give Julia More Agency, Sibling Bonding, anyways imagine julia wearing a wyvern skin cape/headress like how sick is THAT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 03:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10676943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nosferatank/pseuds/Nosferatank
Summary: Julia, in the aftermath of her mother's unfocused warp, finds herself in the wilds of Thracia, where the wyverns run untamed and the desert environment is harsh.





	Crown of Fangs

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think, as a person from the spirit forest, Deirdre taught her children how to dress and process animals. It’s something the court disapproved of, but the kids enjoyed the bonding time with her. Dad bonded with them by teaching astrology and navigation like Cigyun taught to him when he was a child.

Deirdre knew, with the certainty of the blood running through her veins, that something in the world had shifted, ever so slightly, in the wrong direction.

There was a tightness in her chest as she ran, all propriety as an empress forgotten, to where her daughter and son were in the courtyard gardens. After slamming open the doors, Deirdre rushed to where her children were at the time, vines whipping at her face and tangling in her hair as she went.

She came upon both of the twins in the garden, as expected, however her jangling senses were correct. Julius, clutching a tome much too big for his small frame to his chest, was pointing his smoke-wreathed hand at an injured and hunched Julia, hand contorting in the motions of a spell Deirdre had never seen before.

Like a lashing snake, Deirdre pulled her Warp staff out of its holster on her side (Alvis had insisted she carry one to warp herself and the children away in the event of an assassination attempt) and focused all of her magic into it in one desperate flash. Julia looked at her mother in fear one last time before being wrapped in light and vanishing, leaving only a faint bloodstain on the manicured grass.

Deirdre was left panting and exhausted, and watched as her eight year old son turned towards her, muddy dark magic still in his hands. 

He grinned wider than any human ought to be able to, and the last thing Deirdre saw was a dragon’s head made of smoke and black flame.

———

The wyvern matriarch’s spines bristled as she heard the cracking of brittle branches, waking her from her guarded slumber. One did not live as long as she without sleeping lightly, after all. 

Leaving her packmates slumbering, she crept towards the location of the crackling noises, nostrils flared wide to catch the scent of the intruder. Human, it seemed. And injured. Well, she wouldn’t particularly mind a snack, even at this hour.

The matriarch stalked forward on all fours, footsteps silent despite her bulk. The dirty white form of the crumpled human came into view, heaving with sobs. The matriarch inhaled deeply, and her spines shivered in surprise. This stripling smelled strongly of one of the Mother Dragons, Narga themselves. All thoughts of desecrating one of Narga’s Children fled from her mind and she approached the child softly, spines flush against her back and head lowered in a non-intimidating fashion.

At the matriarch’s huff, the human looked up sharply and scrambled away, one hand clutching the reddened fabric of her clothing. Her clawless fingers grappled with the before coming in contact with a red slab and grabbing it, pointing her finger at the approaching wyvern threateningly. Unimpressed by the strange human threat display, the matriarch moved her snout forward and gently tapped the girl’s shaking hand with it. Incredulous, the human remained frozen as the matriarch moved forward and gave her a swift lick on her face. Satisfied, the matriarch grunted and gently grabbed the girl’s clothing in her teeth, carrying her back to the nest like she would a hatchling. 

The old wyvern dropped Narga’s Child once she entered the nest-grounds, the smaller wyverns lifting their heads in curiosity. She snorted once and flared her nostrils, and her message was heard. Her packmates scented the air and came to the same conclusion she did. 

The matriarch’s attention was grabbed by the light touch on her scales. Turning to look, she saw the tiny hand yank away from her side. Knowing the dangers of infection, she nosed up the girl’s chest-cloths and proceeded to lick at the wound. The saliva would kill any infection that was there, she know from experience. Though the child grit her teeth and grunted at the touch of the large wound, she did not cry out.

The wyvern pack leader knew this would be a strong one, a wyvern in her own merit.

———

Julia, during her fifth summer with the wyverns, watched as the pack-mother left this world. 

At her side, her closest packmates -Thuban, Eltanin, and Alrakis - kept their heads low to the ground out of respect and grief for their aged leader. The old wyvern locked eyes with Julia, sharp pupils contracting to slivers. Her lungs wheezed and rattles and then stopped, her eyes never leaving her packmate’s.

Julia rested her calloused and dirtied hand on the matriarch’s enormous head, the scales still feeling warm against her flesh. The human teenager knew of the traditions of wyverns and their fallen leaders: the dead would be left to rot, then the pack would return to take the bones and teeth to the cairn in the caves. 

Taking out the knife stolen from a tiny farmer’s village, Julia decided she would honor her pack-mother in a different way. Julia thought, while making a careful incision along the matriarch’s still belly, that the old wyvern who accepted her as pack after her memories disappeared would travel with her pack even after death. She wasn’t quite sure when she had learned this in her past, but skinning and treating prey was knowledge that did not leave her. 

That, and the star charts.

After folding up the dripping skin and slinging to over Eltanin’s back, Julia looked back to her former pack mother, and gave her a name. Lacerta.

The trip to the scrubland’s caves was somber and quiet, Julia’s bare feet making even less of a sound than her companion’s. After returning to the cave entrance, the other wyverns snorted and faced her, smelling the death of their matriarch acknowledging Julia as pack-mother.

Growling that she wanted to be left alone, Julia ventured to the outcropping where she charted the star’s movements. After setting the drying skin of Lacerta next to her, Julia leaned against the outcropping’s wall and gazed at the stars. Even as tears gathered in her eyes at the loss of her pack-mother, she remembered, faintly, the image of a human man pointing out the exact same stars to her and how, if one were lucky, and blessed, they could see the future in them.

Julia fell asleep under the stars, and dreamed of a boy in blue falling before a dragon made of smoke and night.

She woke, knowing with certainty afforded by the stars, that this boy and the dragon-creature had something to do with her past, and her family. 

———

Before the coming winter months, Julia decided to lead her pack west, in hopes of finding greater territory and hunting. 

She packed up her Elfire and other personal effects such as a homemade protractor and star maps etched onto leather scraps. She slung Lacerta’s scaly pelt over her shoulders and mounted Thuban before urging them into liftoft, her destination clear in her mind.

After two days of traveling, Julia was surprised to see a raging battle in the desert, tame wyverns and humans alike whipping up sand and blood in their frenzy. Julia looked away and prepared to reroute, as the crossfire would prove dangerous to her pack. However, she saw a glint of a blade that caught her attention. Ignoring her better judgement, Julia nudged Thuban down to get a closer look.

As she and her pack glided down, she saw a tamed wyvern swoop down on the blue-haired boy, spear at the ready. 

Julia, who recognized the boy from what the stars showed her, released a shrieking battle cry, sending Thuban and the rest of her pack into a steep dive as she unleashed a charge of Elfire, her fury raining down like the breath of the dragons of old.

The soldier didn't even have the time to scream before he was reduced to a smoldering corpse.

The boy that was fighting the wyvern leapt back, his bangs somewhat singed from the blast. Julia clicked at Eltanin to ‘stay, protect!’ at the blue haired boy’s side. She then pulled up the hood of Lacerta, the teeth of the headdress somewhat obscuring the top of her vision.

A pack of forty-two wild wyverns descended upon the Thracian troops, their fury backed by their young leader.

———

Seliph, though grateful for any help, wild as it was, still found Julia and her three wyverns… unsettling. Something about her made the hairs at the back of his neck prickle, like a predator was lurking behind him. And in a sense, one was; Julia very much acted like a wyvern in the shape of a human. She had claimed she had seen him and his army in the stars, and Seliph believed her, since he’d met a few star-readers himself in his travels. Despite her strangeness, the army didn’t seem to mind her, since she kept to herself and slept alone outside, seeming to prefer the stars as her roof than a tent.

Seliph pondered this, and plans for the war, and worries for his friends and family, and finally heaved himself out of his cot, knowing there would be no sleep for him tonight, yet again. Sighing, he flipped off his covers and heaved himself up, joints heavy from lack of sleep, and flipped the tent flap open. 

The night air was somewhat chilly and the sky was clear, as it often was in Thracia. Seliph strolled around the campsite, attempting to drown his thoughts in the rhythm of his steps. At the edge of the camp, he saw a relaxed form sitting in the grass, white hair tied up and scaly cloak on her back.

Slowly, Seliph approached her and sat next to her, keeping a foot of distance between them.

“So,” he began, looking up at the stars. “Having trouble sleeping?”

“Only a little bit.” Julia responded, her voice croaky and crackling. “The stars are so clear here, I would like to read them while I can.”

“You’re a star-reader?”

Julia hummed. “Yes. I think my father taught me, although I’m not sure.”

Seliph turned towards her, tilting his head. “You’re not sure?”

Not taking her eyes off the sky, Julia responded. “I have no memories past when my pack found me.” Her fingers curled, cracked and dirty fingernails digging into the soil. “I saw you and your army in the stars, and I hoped it would lead me to my blood family. It’s taken so long, though…”

Seliph leaned back, laying on the grass and gazing back at the stars. “I don’t remember my parents either, they died when I was young.” He paused. “I’ve been told I take after my mother, but it’s… frustrating sometimes, for someone to look at you and see someone who you don’t even know, or their savior, or their conquering king.”

“I felt the same way, when I took over the pack.” Julia said, copying his movements and flopping down onto the ground. “When Lacerta perished, she made it her last words that the pack was to follow me. It was… daunting, and it felt like far too much. But we survived, and thrived, and so will you, I think.”

Seliph turned his head to look at her. “And how do you know this?”

It was hard to see in the darkness, but he saw Julia’s mouth tug into a smile. “The stars told me.” she said, matter-of-fact.

Seliph barked out a soft laugh, “ I think I know what Sir Oifey meant when he complained about ‘Crusaders-damned cryptic astrologists’ now.”

“Did your stars happen to tell you any details of out impending victory?”

“Well, not really.” Julia mused. “Let’s say the stars can be ‘Crusaders-damned cryptic’, as it were.”

“Would you mind telling me more of star-reading? I always found it interesting, if incomprehensible.”

With that request, Julia launched into a surprisingly enthusiastic explanation of astrology and its methods, and while she spoke Seliph’s eyelids grew heavy, and he wondered what it would have been like, not to be an only child.

**Author's Note:**

> well seliph my boy do I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU!  
> this took a long time to write, mostly because illness and work and all kinds of bullshit. There was supposed to be a scene for the battle of bellhalla but that’s what the fic got stuck on, and im anxious to post this so have at it.


End file.
